


truth travels at her own chosen speed

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Knives Out (2019)
Genre: (so not very different to my cousy fics), Awkwardness, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Happy, Love Confessions, Pining, Romance, fuck Ransom he's a creep, if there ever was a cinnamon roll/cinnamon roll ship this is it, random Elliott because I love Elliott
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26025772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Marta has a confession to make.The great Benoit Blanc, for the first time ever, is slow on the uptake.
Relationships: Benoit Blanc/Marta Cabrera
Comments: 20
Kudos: 149





	truth travels at her own chosen speed

**Author's Note:**

> I was in the middle of writing a longer, plottier, Benoit/Marta fic and this silly idea just popped into my head. Apologies, this is so slight.

Blanc doesn’t look surprised when she tells him, not one bit; why should he? The famous detective, this is what he does. He had warned her, “unerringly” is the word he used back then. Marta hasn’t thought about it like that, but it makes sense he knew already.

That’s not why she did it. Why she told him.

“Of course you do,” Blanc says in reply to her words, grabbing her by the shoulders and giving her a friendly, gentle shake.

She’s confused by the way he is looking straight through her, instead of at her.

“Dear girl,” he says and he’s said that before, but this time she _winces_ when he says it. “You were going up against an onslaught of wretchedness. This family you thought were your friends had all turned on you. You were in grief, complicated by your misguided guilt. And then I — I showed up in your life, unannounced, and believed in your innocence, told you you were good and kind. I exonerated you, protected you. Of course you have a crush on me.”

Marta doesn’t like how the word sounds on his lips. Not like when she said it. She had meant for it to sound at least cute, if not romantic. Like it was no big deal — _I have a crush on you_ — but still worthy of mention. Marta didn’t think he was going to reciprocate, but she wasn’t expecting this cruel dismissal either. It feels so unlike him.

“Here we have a classic case of transference,” Blanc keeps on going, though Marta wishes he wouldn't. “I am a comforting figure for you. But it’s not real.”

He says _transference_ in a way that makes Marta wonder whether this has happened to him before. Of course it has; dozens of murder case witnesses or would-be murderers or police officers, falling at the feet of the smooth gentleman sleuth. She’s such a fool — or well, this is one of those cases Marta finds the English in her head unfortunately flat, tonta, that’s what she is. No wonder Blanc didn’t miss a beat. How many times has he had to politely extricate himself from this situation?

He’s still holding her by her shoulders, those big hands of his. Marta lifts her hand, touching the outside of his wrist, the skin surprisingly soft there, and then pulling him away from her, lightly but firmly.

“Not real?” she says, feeling more anger than she logically should. “How lucky of me, that the great detective is here to explain everything.”

Blanc takes a step back at her tone, looking paler all of the sudden.

“Marta?”

She throws a glance at the two mugs of tea, forgotten, in front of them. This is why she told him. She had to. At first they met here at Harlan’s house (well, her house now) with the pretext of a chat on the latest news about Ransom Drysdale’s impending but constantly delayed trial, the prosecution asking Blanc to help them make sense of it all. But they soon grew out of those excuses, and now they just do this, meet for tea. Marta told him because they’re friends.

“You’ve been here before, you know where the door is,” she is telling him now. “Thank you for your service, I hope I didn’t take up too much of your precious time with my silliness.”

She watches on as he struggles with wanting to say more and not wanting to be rude by contesting Marta’s request that he leaves the house. In the end the latter wins out, just like Marta knew it would.

+++

One of the best things about staying in the Boston area for a while to tie up things in the Thrombey/Drysdale Case is that he gets to see Elliott often and make their little dates for breakfast. The police officer enjoys Benoit’s company as much as the other way around, though he is, regretfully, much less vocal about it.

The bad thing is that this morning Benoit feels uncharacteristically tempted to discuss issues of a personal nature with the man, and for all his virtues Elliott doesn’t really do comforting as an interpersonal strategy. Which is why Benoit should know better than to bring up the issue of Marta with him. He feels mildly embarrassed to be so bothered by this predicament, since it hardly warrants the name, it’s only a couple of ignored texts, and it’s not even been two days, Benoit is not being _ghosted_ , like they say these days.

“Isn’t that enough honey?” Elliott protests upon seeing Benoit slather his piece of brioche with the syrupy liquid. “Please, I’m getting a sugar rush just watching you.”

He shrugs; he likes his breakfast sweet, Elliott likes… well, Lieutenant Elliott likes to quietly antagonize everybody and everything. And a potential perforated stomach thanks to all that blacker-than-black coffee he ingests.

“Marta is not talking to me,” Benoit says, bored with preludes, and finally figuring no amount of honey-dripping bread is going to fix this particular issue.

Elliott gulps down more of his tar-like coffee, doesn’t even look surprised.

“How long has been Miss Cabrera not talking to you?” he just asks.

Benoit takes a bit more honey for his pastries, ineffectual as it is.

“Oh about thirty hours, or so, I suppose.” Oh it’s not true, he knows the exact number — he’s playing to his audience.

Elliott smiles.

“You’re not a very worldly person, are you, Benny?”

Answering that would probably mean he has to clear up all sorts of ontological assumptions, but he is still a bit bothered, wounded even, that Elliott has fallen under that common misconception as well.

He is not an idiot, Benoit is aware of what people think of him. They think he’s a joke. Oh they admire the figure he cuts, the eccentric sleuth, but only as a relic of an era they imagine more heroic than their own. They don’t see Benoit as a real person, or at least not as an adult. He’s their toy. They hire him and they use him for their purposes but most people treat him like he is a child playing at make-believe, dressed up for Halloween, a child to be _humored_. But he’s a middle aged self-employed man, with a profile in _The New Yorker_ , he shouldn’t have to suffer such treatment.

“So what did you do to her?” Elliott asks, assuming. Correctly.

Benoit wants to be able to answer honestly. This hasn’t happened to him before. He’s had people romantically interested in him before, of course. For all Elliott’s protestations, he is a man of the world. He’s had plenty of dalliances. But it’s never happened in the context of his profession, his vocation as it were. Normally the people he meets on his investigations are anything but eager to keep him in their lives afterwards.

Of course, he has never met anyone quite like Marta Cabrera before.

“I believe I hurt her,” Benoit says, simply. Then thinks again, because Marta deserves a modicum of precision, because Benoit being imprecise means there really is something rankling him: “And worse, I did not understand her. She wants to be seen, you know.”

“Don’t we all?” Elliott quips.

“No, not specially,” Benoit says. For example, he has the feeling the man in front of him has no particular desire to be seen. “Marta is far too used to being invisible. She made it into a strategy of survival, because she had to. I suspect now she wishes to break a habit that she did not choose.”

The police detective looks at Benoit with an exhaustion way beyond what the early hour warrants.

“Just apologize to her, okay,” he says, getting up from his chair. “I’ve got to be in the precinct in fifteen.”

Elliott is always very keen to remind him that he has to adhere to normal timetables and schedules. That he has a grown-up job he has to be at during pre-set hours and Benoit is _just a child_ with a lucrative hobby.

The question remains, though. Not the question of what to do — Elliott was perfectly right on that front — but the question underneath that question, like a second rug underneath the rug that further obstructs the view of the floor. Perhaps not as elegant a metaphor as his masterpiece (the donut) but useful to convey the main idea here: this issue has layers, and Benoit is afraid that, back at Marta's, he only bothered peeling but the most superficial ones off.

+++

She makes tea for both of them, stretching the opening silence. This gesture seems to wrong-foot Blanc a little but truth be told Marta wasn’t even that angry the other day, she just figured she’d give it a couple of days so talking to him again wouldn’t be so embarrassing. Even someone like her has some pride when it comes to this stuff.

Blanc sits on one of the chairs at the kitchen island; he moves like he is trying to make his wide frame smaller for Marta’s sake, like he is trying to occupy as little space as he can. The image worsens Marta’s guilt. She never meant to make him feel bad with what she said — she just figured it would save them both trouble in the future. She didn’t want any awkwardness between them because she kept it a secret, and she definitely didn’t want poor Blanc to end up covered in puke because he accidentally asked the wrong question and Marta couldn’t admit to a simple crush.

“I owe you an apology,” he tells her, solemn as she expected him to be. “A most sincere one.”

She places a mug in front of him, just wanting to be done with it already. Wanting not to have to actually listen to the words at all.

“Really, Blanc, it’s fi— “

“I know you do not owe me this kindness,” he interrupts her. “But would you mind terribly letting me finish?”

His voice is soft, the edges of words made even rounder by the particular way he speaks. Marta has lived around this part of the country long enough to know she’s supposed to find his accent ridiculous, but she quite likes it. She’s not without biases, though — Blanc would probably put it in those terms.

“I should have never spoken to you the way I did in here the other day,” he goes on. “Your feelings are your own, Marta, no one has the right to tell you what they are or aren’t. Much less someone presumptuous enough to consider himself your friend.”

Blanc seems to hesitate when he says that last word. Marta wonders if she had looked angrier than she felt the other day. Or maybe she was right and he is not that much of a detective, after all.

She pulls at her sweater, hiding her hands under the sleeves until only the tips of her fingers are visible. She wants to make herself smaller too, out of mortification. And it’s cold — she notices Blanc has come to the house with as many layers of clothes as she’s ever seen him in. He once confessed to Marta that the Massachusetts weather bothered him, and somehow remembering this makes Marta feel even more guilty about dragging him into this mess.

“I should have answered your texts,” she tells him. “I didn’t handle this brilliantly.”

Blanc smiles openly at her at that. It brightens Marta’s day. Maybe it will be fine, she thinks. 

Then he changes his expression right in front of her — not closed, he just seems to be picking his next words carefully. Well, more carefully than Benoit Blanc usually already does.

“When you didn’t answer, I… the idea of losing your friendship pained me deeply,” he tells her simply, with a lot less words one might expect. And well, for Blanc _simply_ surely must be a huge effort and that means something, that melts Marta’s residual annoyance at his behavior in a moment.

Plus, Marta is not sure anyone else has complained about the possibility of losing her friendship before. But that is what started this whole thing, she reminds herself. That Blanc is not quite _anyone else_.

“Of course you still have my friendship, don’t be silly,” she says, wanting to speed things up back to normal. “It’s like you said. A little crush. Don’t worry, I’ll get over it.”

She waves with her hand, illustrating the movement of getting over it, like she can prompt it so easily. Since she doesn’t know what will happen in the future it’s not strictly a lie.

But Blanc makes a face, fixing his gaze into the steam coming out from the hot tea in front of him. Something like a frown but not exactly that. More pensive, more… intriguing. Marta is intrigued, anyway.

“Please, tell me…” he starts, only looking up at her halfway through his sentence. “Is there a way to keep your precious friendship, Marta, without you _getting over it_ , as you put it?”

Marta quirks her eyebrow, sure she’s not mistaking the meaning of his words. Really? All this fuss and now this? She wants to be angry. She’s anything but, of course.

“Couldn’t you have figured this out two days ago?” she asks him.

Blanc no doubt catches the fondness in her voice.

“Ah,” he raises his index. “I had to observe the facts first. Truth always arrives at her destination, but sometimes she might take a little detour. She has her own pace, you know.”

He reaches to touch Marta’s hand for a moment, brushing his fingers over hers on the table. Then he pulls back, looking down at his hand and up at Marta again with a little nod, satisfied like he has made such a statement with that. And he has.

“Careful, detective, or I might suspect you have a crush on me.”

He takes a sip from the tea, his blue eyes watching Marta, with pure joy, from behind the mug.

“How about that, Watson.”

+++

She is not as shy as she looks, and that’s a good thing, Benoit decides, because he is not as proper as he looks either, and besides, he knew this about her. It makes for a good combination because the moments right after his inadequate love confession feel like a secret between them.

Marta holds on to his hand as she leads him up some stairs, on the wing of the house that was mostly for guests, away from the main areas — one of the many stairs in the house and one Benoit hasn’t noticed before now, because it wasn’t pertinent to his potential murder investigation. Now he decides it’s his favorite bit of the house.

Her grip is careful but tight, as if she is afraid Benoit might change his mind at any moment now and she will have none of that.

Marta shouldn’t worry about that, but he likes her tight grip anyway.

They climb slowly, deliberately stretching the prologue. They are not shy, but they did wait until finishing their teas before kissing, Marta tasting of lemongrass. Neither of them are shy, but they don’t like being rushed.

“This house has a lot of secret passages,” Marta is saying, glancing at him over her shoulder in the most charming gesture, Benoit thinks. “Some I didn’t know about when I was working for Harlan. Do you want me to show you?”

“Please, it was rude of me not to ask for the grand tour before.”

Marta snorts with laughter, hiding her grin with her free hand, “Grand tour” she repeats, like Benoit has said something incredibly dirty, some euphemism. He finds he loves that sound and decides to make it his endeavour to extricate as much laughter from Marta as he can from now on.

+++

“ —mighty cold,” he mutters, pulling Marta closer under the covers, like he needs an excuse to do so. Then a combination of words catches his fancy and he starts whispering in a sing-song voice, “mmm, mighty Marta, Marta the mighty…” with a satisfied, sleepy smirk on his lips, forgetting he has a bemused audience.

It’s later, and yes she still sleeps in one of the guest rooms, leaving the usual family beds untouched. Blanc looked entertained by this revelation, because — Marta suspects — he understands her logic only too well. She’s holding his wrist between her fingers, holding it up against the pillow, breathing softly against the inside of his arm. She wonders if the Thrombeys would find that this development adds insult to injury, Marta inheriting the house _and_ sleeping with the detective who made sure she kept it, in one of its beds, between the family’s bedsheets.

“Why this smile?” Blanc — well, _Benoit_ , he said to use his first name, she reminds herself, giddy — asks, using his other hand to trace the line of Marta’s mouth, like he wants to illustrate the word _smile_ with his fingertips.

“I was thinking about unintended consequences,” she tells him.

“Unintended consequences,” he repeats. It sounds different in his voice, more ironic, yet more solemn.

“Ransom hiring you to investigate Harlan’s death just to get me in jail,” Marta says. “He couldn’t have guessed that decision would bring us, you and me, well, here.”

It’s clear where _here_ is. 

She thinks it’s funny, and maybe even a bit petty but she doesn’t care because fuck Ransom, he deserves to be extra miserable, to know he’s the unwilling cause of Marta’s current state of happiness.

“Let’s not be too harsh in our judgement. Villain that he is, young Mr. Drysdale wasn’t the only one in the dark on this particular respect,” Benoit admits. He tilts his head to kiss the hand that is holding his wrist hostage.

“Ah,” Marta sighs, delighted.

This is a far better confession than the one he gave her in the kitchen.

“The great detective bested,” Benoit goes on, clearly enjoying the idea. It must get boring sometimes, the way people don’t surprise you anymore when you have a brain like Benoit’s. It’s a bit sad, Marta thinks, deciding she wants to surprise him a lot in the future. “You win again.”

And she didn’t feel like that back then, the first time Benoit told her this. The huge manor, all of Harlan’s millions, his legacy, that wasn’t enough to convince Marta she had won. But right now, right here, she believes she might have, after all.


End file.
